Why A Harmonica?

Precisely for this reason. It's at https://www.bluesharmonica.com/lessons/c_harmonica_intro_lesson

In that lesson's first video, David explains why he primarily uses the A harp for the first levels lessons. He says the A is the most commonly used (which I think is debatable and has been debated in the forum before).

I will say in my experience bending notes accurately on the A harp was easier than on higher keys (like a C), especially so on the 3 draw. Of course, your experience might be different.

Budgets are of course something very personal, but there are few (if any) other instruments which cost the same as a harmonica and are professionally playable. So getting two harmonicas is cheap if you compare it to getting one guitar, sax, violin, piano, set of drums etc. :-). Worst case is you have spent $80 and hopefully had some fun even if in the end the instrument isn't for you. Happy harping!

Awdeofile:

Welcome aboard! I hope you find exploring the harmonica to be as fun an adventure as I have, since taking it up about six years ago. As others have mentioned, the Ask Instructor David Barrett Forum is the perfect place to ask about the musical reasons for using different harmonca keys for lessons. David always welcomes questions from beginners (e.g., there's no such thing as a "dumb" question; not only is he eager to answer questions from students who are just starting out, but he also gives great concise answers that hit the spot).

That said, yes, most folks will recommend a C diatonc harmonica to start. In part that's because a lot of lesson series, both in print and on line, use songs that work in C. I started my journey with a C Marine Band and a book by Wisconsin-based Marc "Lil' Rev" Revenson, who uses a lot of well-known folk songs to start folks out. And there are a lot of inexpensive harmonicas that are made only in the key of C.

But blues-based harmonica music, the focus of David's lessons, frequently uses tunes played in the key of E major. This was a common key for traditional blues, as it's a fairly easy key for playing blues on a guitar in standard tuning. So what's that got to do with using an A harmonca? The 10-hole diatonic harmonica was designed to play European music that focused on notes that worked well in the harmonica's key. But 100 years ago, American harmonica players discovered that if you played a harmonica in a certain key to accompany a blues tune in a certain different key, you could get a more "bluesy" sound out of the notes. One of the common differences used was to play a harmonica tuned four melodic scale steps above the guitar, using not the 1-blow note as the root for the melody, but using the 2-draw. Hence, for blues in E, using an A harmonica, where the 2-draw is the E note, worked out.

From there, things really muliply. E.g., to be sure to have a harmonica that works well in the keys of the songs a band may play at a jam, you might want to have harmomicas in up to eight different keys. (Tho' having just three, C, G and A, will work for a whole lot of tunes.) And if you ended up playing a lot with a jazz or swing band full of saxophone players, you might need to have harmonicas in all 12 musicial keys, just in case the bandleader calls out something like D-flat or F-sharp as the key for the next tune!

And even with that, as you go along the harmonica road you'll discover that some players and manufacturers use reed tunings for 10-hole harmonicas that vary from the standard Richter tuning system generally used in blues. E.g., "country" tuning, harmonic minor tunings for Eastern European folk music, "Paddy Richter" tuning for Celtic music. And that doesn't even begin to describe the various tunings for tremolo harmomicas, chromatic harmonicas, etc. etc.

For starting out, from my experience I personally suggest a couple of things: Simplify your lesson approach and don't worry about a lot of differently-keyed harmonicas until you feel really comfortable with fewer of them. E.g., after going through David's lesson on the C harmonica, pick up an A for the next few levels. Along the way David will present stuff that uses a G harmonica, and after that other keys. But one harmonica at a time.

But at the same time, let your curiousity lead to you learn what you can about the musical-mechanical history of the harmonica. A good place to start is David's interview of Brendan Power, an amazing player who's never met a harmonica he didn't want to take apart and rework the tuning of.

Finally, if you and your family budget are lucky, you won't become like me. Talk about "multiplication," I sometimes wonder if my harmonica drawer has harmonicas in it ... or rabbits. Over the past six years I've picked up not only diatonic harmonicas for differently keyed tunes, but a bunch of other oddball instruments as well. In part that's because I came into this after some time playing other instruments in musical groups, including the pit band for a periodic cabaret show. Singers are very picky about their vocal ranges, and I've had instances with cabaret shows where I worked on the band chart for a blues-based song in, say, F, where the singer showed up at dress rehearsal and announced that he or she could only sing it in C-sharp. While the guitar player rummaged around for a capo, and the bass player and piano player frantically penciled stuff into their charts, I simply said, "no biggie - I have an F-sharp harp here in my bag that will work perfectly." (Of course, in such situations our drummer always says someting like, "I can't do that - I spent the whole week practicing this number in F!") And a few years ago our music director wanted to somehow create a sound that brought to the imagination a "haunted accordion." In my bag of tricks I had a really low-tuned octave harmonica that I'd used only to entertain my grandkids ... and it worked perfectly!

Again, welcome. And have fun!